


melted wings

by Goldmonger



Series: Proselytized [1]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, First Meetings, Gen, Priest is one scary dude, the return of the Svlad Cjelli persona
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 10:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13164627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldmonger/pseuds/Goldmonger
Summary: “Svlad behaves and doesn’t talk back to me, and he’s never hurt a soul, but – but there’s something not quite right about him. He doesn’t act like a nine-year-old should act. He says things sometimes that send absolute chills up my spine, and I couldn’t tell you why without sounding like a loon.”“I deal exclusively with loons,” he reassured her. “Go on.”





	melted wings

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo I had 8,000 words of this series written when the stuff about Max came out and I wasn't going to finish it or post it at all but I felt like, you know what, this TV show meant something to me and just because it came from the brain of a dirtbag doesn't mean it has to turn into something bad. He doesn't get to take that too. DGHDA is a community and a cast and a crew beyond one person, and I hope people can still find something hopeful and good in it. 
> 
> Anyway, here's the story of how Priest recruited Dirk, Bart and the Rowdy 3, and it's now canon because the original series writer sucks now and there's probably not going to be a series 3 anyway. Enjoy my friends I am sorry for still being so bitter lmao
> 
>  
> 
> ***

The townhouse was unimpressive from the outside, a narrow Georgian structure squeezed in between a deli and a row of semi-attached tenement buildings. The yellow paint was peeling, the potted dracaenas at the second-storey windows shrivelled and black, bristling in the sharp wind that cut at Priest’s face like a fine blade. As he drew closer, placing his feet carefully on the tarmac so as not to slip on the ice crystallised the previous night, he chanced a look up. A lace curtain fell at the top left window, cloudy with condensation, screening the small pale face from view.

Priest rapped smartly on the front door, which immediately opened to reveal a diminutive middle-aged woman and a hallway even dingier than the exterior of the residence would indicate.

“Good evening ma’am,” Priest intoned in his signature Alabamian drawl. “Is this the home of a Mrs. Maguire?”

“Yes,” the woman said, almost breathless. “Are you – did they send - ,”

“Priest, Mr Priest to my friends,” he replied, punctuating his words with a smile that only moved the bottom half of his face. It was less work, and it encouraged people not to waste his time. “From The Agency.” He flashed her his identification with a movement as fluid as a martial strike.

Mrs Maguire swallowed her gasp with admirable efficiency, though she wasn’t quite able to hide the way her fingers, curled around the door and its jamb, turned white with tension. “You people are fast. I placed the call on Thursday.”

“We like to get these sensitive things done lickety-split whenever possible, ma’am.”

Mrs Maguire peered behind him to the SUV parked on the street, a pair of agents in black fleece jackets and woolly hats stationed outside it, as stationary as though the November wind had frozen them in place.

“Is all that necessary?” Mrs Maguire asked faintly. “He’s just a little boy.”

“Purely protocol, ma’am,” said Priest, which was true, though less pernickety than he was making it out to be. He’d be so very dead by now without that protocol. “May I come in? I’m still getting used to this English weather.”

“Oh! Of course, I’m sorry -,”

He stamped his boots on the mat inside the doorway while Mrs Maguire hung his coat, scanning the hall more out of habit and idle curiosity than actual paranoia. The wallpaper, off-white and patterned with fleur-de-lis, curled away from the wall intermittently. The lightbulb was naked and the ceiling spotted with mould, and the sound of dripping from somewhere else in the house was audible. Pathetic, but inoffensive. This was supposed to be one of the easier ones, at least according to Riggins, although that old oaf’s sentimentality tended to obfuscate the true dangers of the subjects more often than he was comfortable. Priest was no fool, though, and his gait was influenced by where weapons pressed into his back, ankle, ribs and thigh. His formal-wear, as he liked to see those deadly affectations.

“Would you like some tea or coffee?” Mrs Maguire’s hairline had started to bead with sweat, and he didn’t miss the way her eyes flicked to the staircase every few seconds.

“Coffee would be just marvellous, ma’am,” he said, eking out the vowels in a way he knew made him appear more rustic. “May I?” he gestured to a chair as they entered the living room.

“Please.”

He settled into the armchair with a puff of dust, and resisted the urge to cough.

“You have a lovely home,” he called to her over the whistling of the kettle. The mould had seeped in overhead here too, and the furniture looked as though someone had bought it in the nineteenth century and only bothered to clean every other year since then. He let his hand drift through one of the cobwebs that laid over the lamp on a nearby table like mosquito netting. Beside it was a very old photo frame, tarnished silver. The red-haired toddler sitting on a stool against a blank white canvas inside of it gazed out sullenly.

“Thank you,” she said nervously. “It’s a rental, though, I can’t take much credit.” Or blame, he thought with some amusement. “Cream? Or sugar?”

“I take it black,” he said apologetically. “It wakes me up.”

He continued to observe the room and the pervasive silence of the place while she assembled a tray of biscuits and cups. He took his coffee and sipped it while Mrs Maguire adjusted herself on the couch opposite him, allowing the awkwardness to rise like a toxic, diaphanous gas. When Mrs Maguire finally opened her mouth, Priest interjected smoothly.

“A quiet place you’ve got here.”

She blinked. “Yes. We don’t get many visitors.”

“Unusually quiet,” said Priest, inspecting the sole photograph in the room. “For a house with children in it. Purely speculative, of course.” He smiled at her, ensuring it was empty again. “I have no children of my own.”

“It’s not that strange,” Mrs Maguire said uncertainly. “Svlad is very reserved. Keeps to himself. There’s no other children here for him to play with anyway, but he prefers his own games -,”

“You don’t play with him?”

“I – no.”

Priest tilted his head, catching Mrs Maguire’s eye. “Is he misbehaved? Disruptive?”

“No, no, he’s a good boy. He’s very well-behaved. Polite.” Mrs Maguire had turned grey.

Priest sat back in the musty chair, gulped his coffee and experienced a small thrill when it scalded the back of his throat. He didn’t want to miss a thing.

“Does he frighten you, Mrs Maguire?”

She looked away from him, wringing her hands in her lap. “I feel terrible,” she muttered. “I feel awful saying all these things, because he’s such a good child – he eats all his dinner and cleans up after himself without needing to be told to, and he speaks so softly you’d barely hear him. His mother doted on him, and he worshipped her, you know -,”

“Please. I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.”

Mrs Maguire took a deep breath, checking the doorway and the tenebrous staircase beyond.

“I grew up in Ireland, with a healthy fear of God,” said Mrs Maguire, so softly he had to inch closer to hear. “Svlad behaves and doesn’t talk back to me, and he’s never hurt a soul, but – but there’s something not quite right about him. He doesn’t act like a nine-year-old should act. He says things sometimes that send absolute chills up my spine, and I couldn’t tell you why without sounding like a loon.”

“I deal exclusively with loons,” he reassured her. “Go on.”

“I think there’s something inside him,” she said. She was gaunt, Priest thought, her flesh hanging loosely on her like someone habitually plump who had recently lost a lot of weight very fast. Her eyes were a too-bright blue. “I was taught about demons. I was taught about spirits that take children and replace them with things that look like children. He’s not right. Not right at all and my skin crawls whenever I see him, Christ help me.”

Priest got up and laid a hand on her bony shoulder. She tensed at his touch but wilted in relief at his next words.

“You were right to make the call. It alerted our international agents, for which we’re very grateful. We’re only interested in helping these kinds of people.”

“And what… what are they? The people like – like him?”

Priest sighed, folding his gloved hands over his navel and standing over her imperiously. “They’re individuals who need our help, our guidance. You’ve done enough, ma’am. If it’s amenable to you now, I’d very much like to meet Svlad.”

“Of – of course,” she said, wiping away an errant tear and leading him to the stairs, ascending with the practised stoicism of someone doing something disgusting that is necessary for medicinal purposes.

The first floor had the same murky colouring, with the scent of unwashed clothes only marginally less potent. Mrs Maguire knocked gently on the one of the doors. “Svlad? I’ve got a man here to see you, a Mr Priest. He’s come to talk to you about something, all right? Can we come in?” It was clear she rarely approached him voluntarily, and was perfectly fine with minimal contact. It was just pitiful enough to be humorous to Priest, who found weakness to have great comedic value.

“Come in.”

Priest pushed open the door at Mrs Maguire’s nod, barely registering her scamper down the stairs once she escaped his periphery. He grinned good-naturedly at the boy sitting cross-legged on the dilapidated camp-bed, which couldn’t have been meant for long term use. The room was scantily furnished otherwise; a wardrobe, an open cabinet spilling out a few books and toys, a lamp, a boarded up fireplace. Svlad appeared to be content enough, emerging from a book to appraise Priest with narrowed, perceptive eyes.

“Who are you again?”

There was no trace of his Romanian roots in his accent, which was prim, clipped, and undeniably English. Priest was impressed. He stepped forward, meticulously assessing the threat level in the same part of his subconscious that moderated his breathing.

“Like your guardian said, I’m Mr Priest. I’m from a very special and exciting American institute, Svlad, and I came to tell you about it.”

Svlad closed his book and gave Priest his full attention.

“You’re really from America? What do you want with me?”

Priest chanced another step closer, taking a knee once he realised there weren’t any available surfaces upon which to sit. He lowered his head until he was level with Svlad, who was watching him warily.

“You’re not a normal kid, are you? You can do things other people can’t.”

Svlad recoiled ever so slightly, like a flower closing over its petals under a darkening sky.

“I’m like anyone else,” he said carefully, his voice forcefully neutral. “I don’t know what Mrs Maguire’s been saying, she says some stuff that’s not true because she’s scared, but it’s not my fault, it isn’t, and I haven’t done anything to anybody -,”

His accent slipped as his protestations grew shriller, and Priest held out a hand to quell them so he didn’t develop a headache and an urge to just break out the tranquiliser darts.

“I’m not accusing you of anything, I promise,” he said magnanimously. “But you’re a very special boy, Svlad. Mrs Maguire told us a little bit about your mother, and the things you used to tell her. Can you describe them to me?”

Svlad gripped his own arms in a facsimile of a hug, which, judging by his chilly co-habitant, was the only kind of reassurance he was likely to get. Priest permitted himself the ghost of a smirk. What had Riggins said? _This one won’t give you any trouble._

“It wasn’t me, not really, I don’t – I don’t think,” whined Svlad. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I know, son. But please try to tell me what happened.” Priest pointed to the radio strapped to his belt and shot him a lopsided smile. “So I have something to make sure the bosses don’t get mad at me.”

Svlad looked up at him miserably, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “It really wasn’t me. Just sometimes I would make Mama bring me to get sweets in the village, or to look at the horses in Mr Lupei’s yard because sometimes I just really, really wanted to, and – and whenever we were there somebody would fall down, which was scary, or come rushing out to Mama, and ask for her help, all crazy and shouting and stuff.”

“Why would they ask for her?”

Svlad shrugged. “After Miss Lavinia’s dad died, Mama was the only doctor near the village. A lot of the times we were there people wanted her to help them. They got sick or needed her right when we went into the village, right when I made us go.” He gazed out the translucent window, which was in dire need of a wash. “I sometimes got stuff wrong though. Stuff that made Mama mad. Made everybody mad.”

“Like what?” It had started to rain, soft and even in the background, a respite to the impermeable quiet that seemed to weigh on this house like it harboured a never-ending funeral wake.

“I told Alberta, Mama’s friend, to go out into the moors to check on their sheep, since they just had lambs and they always wandered off,” said Svlad absently. The rain outside had captivated him. “Everybody listened to me because I always brought Mama just when they needed her like that, that little bus with the lights that takes you to a hospital. But I told Alberta to go out when she shouldn’t have because of her baby, and she fell and so did the baby in her, and nobody knew where she was for ages. And nobody listened to me after that, and then I came to live with Mrs Maguire.” Svlad rubbed his arms again. “I don’t know anything, people are always telling me to tell them things and I don’t _know_ , I _don’t_.” He was crying now, single tracks dripping off his cheeks and onto his shirt steadily. His demeanour was starkly and jarringly different to how most children wept. Priest would know.

“I believe you, son,” said Priest solemnly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You were just trying to help, right? You want to help people?”

Svlad chewed his lip, picked at the hem of his well-worn cardigan. “I suppose. I don’t know how, though.”

Priest held up a finger and started digging in his pockets earnestly, watched all the while by a child whose grudging but irrevocable interest was evident. Priest, after much theatrical excavation, finally produced a wallet, which contained his federal badge and CIA identification. He let Svlad paw at it, eyes wide as quarters as he turned over the soft black leather and traced the insignia on the silver sheen of the badge.

“’Blackwing’,” he said in wonderment. “What’s that?”

“It’s a project, an idea, a place,” Priest replied lightly. “It’s where we train and learn from certain kinds of people, people with more to offer than just having gone to a good _school_ and done some _exams_.” Svlad giggled at the exaggerated contempt in his tone and turned over the badge again, Priest’s face, fresh from the academy, staring wryly out from the card next to it.

“Could I do that?” he asked, looking very much like he was attempting to make the question offhand. Priest restrained the smirk this time.

“Well sure, kiddo. That’s why I’m here, after all. To find people who want to do something great with their lives. Do you?”

Svlad nodded slowly, the badge holding him rapt. Priest opened his arms. “Well then, how would you like to mosey on down to our facility – our ah, home, of our project - and see what it’s all about? Bit of fun, eh?”

“I’m wrong all the time though,” Svlad said timorously. “Will the people at Bla – at Blackwings be mad at me when I get stuff wrong? I’m always wrong,” he repeated.

Priest gripped his shoulder firmly but gently. He was greeted by the wide, trusting gaze not unlike that of a lemur. They really were all the same when you got down to it, Priest thought, almost disappointed. No matter how reticent at first, a little freak is a little freak and when they’re alone like this they cling to kindness like flies to shit.

“I’ll take care of you,” he said. “Nothing bad will happen to you there.” The lies slipped from his tongue with all the confidence of a half-decent spy and anyone who interacts frequently with children. “We won’t ever kick you out – we want your help, after all. Hey, if you like, you can even bring Mrs Maguire!”

“No!” Svlad cried, leaping off the bed. “No please, she makes me feel bad just for living here, like everything is my fault -,”

Priest listened to his tirade with a sympathetic expression, making some obligatory but half-hearted remarks in Mrs Maguire’s favour, eventually holding up his hands in mock surrender.

“Well darn,” he said, manipulating his eyebrows into a concerned furrow. “We don’t normally take people like you without a friend or parent to join them on the journey, but if you’re sure you want to do it without her…”

“I am!” insisted Svlad, practically trembling with hope. “She won’t want to go anyway, and when I get there it’ll be okay because I can be friends with all the other people like me that you have there!”

“What a great idea that would be,” said Priest, keeping his voice encouraging. “I better tell Mrs Maguire the tough news while you pack.”

Svlad’s face fell a fraction of an inch. “We’re going right now?”

“We’ve been burning daylight for a while now, little man,” said Priest jocularly. “Hop to it! Blackwing is a busy place, we have no patience for time-wasters or stragglers!”

Svlad looked startled, and Priest watched carefully as the boy nodded and pulled out a bag. He decided the hesitation he saw was just a trick of the light. Even so. Better not to wait and see.

Mrs Maguire sagged with relief when he told her about her charge’s immediate extraction from the country. She winced at being so obviously glad to send off a small child with bulky government officials, but not too much.

“He will be… okay, won’t he?”

Svlad came down the stairs a little unsteadily, a duffle bag in his skinny arms. He pulled his jacket from the coat-hook that had previously toted Priest’s black parka.

“Mr Cjelli is no longer your concern,” Priest replied calmly, waiting for Mrs Maguire to avert her gaze from his. When she did he offered her his hand, which she shook rather limply. He picked up Svlad’s bag.

“Say goodbye, now.”

Svlad focused on the grimy hardwood floor. “Goodbye Mrs Maguire.”

“Goodbye boy,” whispered Mrs Maguire. “I’m sorry. I am.”

Svlad looked up at her, confused, but Priest ushered him into the hallway and out the front door without more opportunity for a clusterfuck. “Goodbye ma’am,” he called back in almost aggressive cheeriness. “We’ll talk soon!”

It had stopped raining, but Akerele and Clarke were still sodden where they waited by the car, their lips tinged a little blue. They gratefully moved to stow Svlad’s bag and help him into the SUV, while Priest turned to give Mrs Maguire a friendly wave. She likely wouldn’t attempt to act on any crisis of conscience, not with how eager she was to be rid of the boy, but there had been cases before of guardians and ‘concerned citizens’ turned brave by guilt. The CIA had the paperwork, the smoke and the mirrors required to dispel any inquiries after the fact, but…

Priest rolled his lips back over his teeth in what would have been recognised as a snarl in the wild, his hand dragging back his jacket as he rested it on his hip. Mrs Maguire, a sliver of her face between the curtains, disappeared so quick she might have never been there at all. Priest let his jacket fall over his gun again, buttoning it this time so the kid wouldn’t see it. Maybe later on, if he asked or if he started complaining. They had a long journey ahead, after all.


End file.
